Review by runciblespoon -- Raquel Says (Something Entire...

[runciblespoon]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Raquel Says (Something Entirely Unexpected)" by Mois benarroch.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Mois Benarroch’s Raquel Says (Something Entirely Unexpected) tells the story of soulmates living their lives in parallels, and of the struggles of finding one’s own identity through language. Young Mois grew up in a predominately Spanish-speaking area of Morocco and then moved to Jerusalem as a teenager. Now, he is forty years old and married, seemingly stuck in a rut, and having an e-mail based relationship with Raquel, who is both the same and separate from Mois, himself. She acts as a muse, encouraging him to use his true voice in his writings. He looks back to different times in his life, in different places, in different languages, and tries to reconcile the various versions of himself.

Before getting into the main story, the book opens with the narrator showing his disdain for critics. He then explains that the reader is what matters in a story, though this sentiment was preceded by precisely what he thinks readers don’t want to read, then followed by admission that it should be deleted. This postmodern, self-referential style weaves throughout the narrative and is jarring when it occurs, which is too often for a book that is so short. As a reader, I don’t like feeling like I am put on the defensive right from the beginning.

It is clear that Benarroch is a poet at heart, and perhaps the story would have been better served as a series of poems. There are some lovely turns of phrase used in this novel, but beautiful sentences do not a compelling story make. There is a lot of repetition, and not much clarity, so the plot is difficult to distinguish. Reading it feels like perusing someone’s personal writing notebook, filled with ideas that aren’t yet quite fully fleshed out.

The main theme of there being someone out in the world whose life is essentially your own, in a way, is compelling. It’s an interesting take on a love story. The language used is beautiful. However, the underlying hostility towards the reader, the tenuous plot, and the lack of proper characterization is suspect. By the time Raquel does speak, the words are not unexpected at all—her voice is no different from that of Mois. Whether this was intentional or not, the climax of the story falls flat because of it. This is a work that could surely benefit from some editing.

I give this 2 out of 4 stars. If you like poetic, stream-of-consciousness style writing and are not too concerned with plot, you might enjoy this.

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Raquel Says (Something Entirely Unexpected)
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